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Lily and Kate are on the Nativity swim team. Being on a swim team is a lot of work – I know since I was on one almost nonstop from the time I was about 11-16.

The swim meet was really well run (read: over in 2 hours). The girls really enjoyed it. Each swam 25 yard events of freestyle, breast, and back stroke.

After the meet I felt like I should call up my parents and thank them for the roughly 1 billion hours they spent at the swim meets when I was a kid. I remember spending whole days at those events – and of that 6-8 hours I’d race about 10 minutes, and that’s only because I swam the longest events possible. Those must have been some brutal days!

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This weekend I got to do some blog training in Morris. The short cut is I train bloggers in rural Minnesota who are involved with the NWAF and U of M Extension Horizons project. It’s a projust to reduce poverty. I absolutely love working with the bloggers.

Anyways, the training was on Saturday morning so we decided it might be fun for the whole family to jin me for te weekend. We stayed in a hotel with a swimming pool. It was also a hotel where we could hear people party at 4 am – but that was OK. Really 5 people in 2 queen beds, it’s not going to be the best night sleep no matter how you slice it.

The pool was nice and warm and they had cable. Hello Iron Chef, Sponge Bob and What Not to Wear!

One fun highlight was going to see the girls basketball game at the U of M Morris. As most of you know, we’re not big athletes but we really enjoyed watching the game.

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The Art Shanties are ice fishing houses on Medicine Lake. Each shanty chooses a theme and does theitr best to decorate the ice fishing house based on that theme.

So we’re city kids. Walking out on a frozen lake is always a big thrill for us. Seeing houses on the lake is an even bigger thrill. Did you know that there is about 2 feet of ice on the lake , even near the shore? We got to peek into some of the holes cut into the ice for fishing and it was pretty cool. OK, I don’t’ think most people out here were fishing but it was cool to see anyways.

We visited most of the shanties. Here are the themes we remember:

Mapping – we were able to track our house on their map and to check out several maps they had posted and/or created for the event. They gathered different info on visitors each week – based on their home location.

Submarine – looked like a submarine inside – kinda cool

3 Story House – yup you could climb up 3 stories in this house. It looked like a periscope from the outside.

Kites – the girls got to make a kite in one house and then fly it! We went on a beautiful day so it was fun to see the kits in the air. Plus this was a popular shanty and with dumb luck on our side our timing was perfect to go in and create without waiting. The artist’s name was Plunkett – and I don’t think he belived me when I said we had seen Sir Oliver Plunkett’s head in a jar in Drogheda.

Words – this shanty has a bring-and-take library. Also they had a list of words that are in danger of being made extinct and they asked each visitor to adopt a word to try to bring it back to life. I chose latibule. Probably most of you know it – it means a hiding place. As in, get out of that latibule kid, it’s mine. I encourage you to use it often.

Paper shanty – made entirely of paper – well a lot of industrial looking tubes – but it was cool.

Dice – there were a bunch of little shanties that looked like dice and they had games inside that you could play. We played a minute of boggle. It was super warm and cozy in the die!

Admundson – Admundson was an explorer. He and his crew went to the Antartic in about 1911. There was a shipwreck and they got stuck in the ice. So a contingency went to the whaling station to get help while 20 men were left behind. This shanty was a replica of station they left behind.

Confessional – It looked like a church. You could write down your confessional admissions. It reminded me of the exhibit at the Minneapolis Public Library last summer – except that these admission were pretty family-friendly.

Radio – one shanty broadband a radio station. How cool is that?

Map Shanty

Confessional Shanty

Inside Confessional Shanty

All Paper Shanty

Submarine Shanty

Dice Shanties

Inside Dice Shanty

Eco-Coffee Shanty

Flying the kite we made

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Third verse same as the first. We went to the Winter Carnival twilight parade. It was very similar to the opening day parade – warmer but still very similar. I’m going to try to remember that for next year.